WTM confirms Andalusia as Premier Partner for November event

The sponsorship deal is part of the Spanish region’s almost €9 million international marketing campaign which features Andalusian star Antonio Banderas as an ambassador to help woo visitors back.

The tourist board will be supporting 40 co-exhibitors from Andalusia taking part in WTM Virtual (9-11 November).

The regional government of Andalusia has allocated €300 million to help its tourism sector to recover, including measures to make restaurants, accommodation and other establishments safe for visitors.

Juan Marin, tourism minister and vice president of the regional government, said Andalusia’s tourism sector had been seeing record levels of growth before the pandemic.

“We have lived through a bad dream from which we are now waking up,” he said.

“We’re working with tourism businesses to introduce strict policies and our ‘Safety Stamp’ shows that hotels, restaurants and travel agencies comply with Covid-19 safety measures.”

The tourist board will use its Premier Partner status to promote its new international slogan – If you love to travel, you’ll love Andalusia. It will also feature video messages from actor Banderas, who hails from Malaga.

Tourism accounts for about 12% of Andalusia’s GDP and employs more than 400,000 people in the region.

“As Premier Partner, we will maximise our presence with our co-exhibitors and suppliers,” said Marin.

“All our destinations have something special for tourists of all types and we are very excited about what is new for 2021.”

Great Britain is the region’s biggest overseas source market, sending 2.3 million tourists each year, followed by Germany (1.1 million) and France (1 million).

WTM London senior director Simon Press said: “WTM Virtual is delighted to announce Andalusia as its Premier Partner for 2020. It means Andalusia can promote its many attractions to thousands of trade buyers and media, which will help visitor numbers to recover and boost the region’s economy.

“Our previous Premier Partners have seen uplifts in revenue and visitor numbers thanks to the greatly enhanced profile that we can offer.”

Andalusia will run a WTM Virtual Destination Briefing on Monday 9 November at 1pm.